


Heavy

by One_of_these_days



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Some spoilers for COIE and Legends S5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22260361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/One_of_these_days/pseuds/One_of_these_days
Summary: *Contains some spoilers for COIE and Legends S5“Welcome back!” The chorus echoes around her as she follows Ray through the portal onto the familiar steel flooring of the Waverider. She knows she should be happy, glad to be back home safe and sound with her very much alive girlfriend and family.She should be and somewhere in her heart, she is. But in that moment, all she feels is the same crushing weight on her chest that’s been there since Oliver died.
Relationships: Sara Lance/Ava Sharpe
Comments: 2
Kudos: 81





	Heavy

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to rush this out before the end of crisis so apologies if it’s not that great! Hope you’ll enjoy!

“Welcome back!” The chorus echoes around her as she follows Ray through the portal onto the familiar steel flooring of the Waverider. She knows she should be happy, glad to be back home safe and sound with her very much alive girlfriend and family. 

She should be and somewhere in her heart, she is. But in that moment, all she feels is the same crushing weight on her chest that’s been there since Oliver died. One of her oldest and closest friends, one of the only people who can truly understand what’s she’s been through, what she struggles with on a daily basis. One of the last ties she has to her life before everything went to shit. 

The cheerful voices are muffled to her ears but she can see the welcome back signs, the broad smiles on all their faces. She tries to reciprocate but knows it must’ve failed because Ava’s brows furrow and that smile that Sara loves so much twists into a frown as she walks towards her. Her instincts tell her to run, to escape and find somewhere to drown her sorrows alone but her feet are glued to the floor. She stares at her shoes, willing her legs to move but somehow they don’t. They can’t. 

She barely registers Ray’s hand on her shoulder, giving her the gentlest squeeze before he heads towards the others, exchanging concerned glances with Ava as he passes her. Her eyes are still angled firmly downwards, fists clenched beside her as she tries to pull herself together. 

Suddenly a hand touches hers and she recoils, probably a little too violently by the look on Ava’s face as her outstretched hand lingers where her own hand had been a second ago. She mumbles a quick apology but can’t find it in her to say much more, afraid that if she does, she’ll break down in tears and it’ll all just come spilling out which is really the last thing she wants right now. 

“What’s wrong babe?” Ava asks in a hushed tone, to avoid alerting the others, who are busy questioning Ray, to Sara’s odd behaviour. 

“Nothing, everything’s fine.” It rolls off her tongue automatically and easily but Ava doesn’t look the slightest bit convinced. She’s not surprised given how much deeper their relationship had been developing since they saved the world from Neron but still, a part of her wishes that Ava would just believe her and let it go. She knows it’s not fair, that Ava just wants to be there for her, to support her, but tonight she can’t let herself indulge in Ava’s comfort. She can’t risk letting Ava and the legends find out how deeply she’d failed them. How even after she’d tried her best to protect them by keeping them away from the frontlines, they’d still died. She still lost them, still let them down. No, she definitely can’t risk that. 

“Babe, please talk to me,” Ava whispers to her, hand still awkwardly hovering between them as though she was physically having to stop herself from reaching out to touch Sara. 

“I-I can’t, not now. I’m sorry, Aves, maybe later but not now.” She almost spits out before her voice has a chance to break and betray the emotions bubbling to the surface. She barely waits for Ava’s reluctant “okay” before she forces herself over to the other legends so that she can grab one of the shots being handed out by Nate. 

The rest of the night passes in a blur of alcohol as she downs shot after shot, enough that even she feels it’s effects. At some point someone must have helped her back to her room because the next thing she knows, she’s in bed, eyes snapping shut the moment they were met with the painfully bright white lights of the Waverider. She feels a hand, Ava’s, on hers and squeezes lightly. 

“Sorry about last night.”

“It’s ok, I’m just worried about you Sara. You and Ray were at trivia night then we got a frantic call from you about some crisis and you were making us promise to stay away. The next thing we know you’re back here with that look in your eye, the same one you had after the death witch incident.” She’s so tempted to look at Ava, to take comfort in the fact that she’s here, that she’s alive and well, that in the end, she’d managed to get them all back. But she can’t-can’t bring herself to look into those beautiful blue-grey eyes which she knows will be filled with love and warmth and concern because she knows she’ll crack the moment she does. The wounds are still too raw, her heart still too weighed down by the memory of her failures. 

“I can’t talk about it right now, I’m so so sorry Aves but I just can’t,” she gasps out. She can almost feel Ava deflate beside her but still her girlfriend squeezes her hand gently, supportively, and says, “okay..okay Sara. I won’t push you but when you’re ready, I’ll be here. Whatever it is you need to say, whenever you want to say it, I’ll be right here.” The softness and understanding in Ava’s voice only makes the guilt settle more firmly in her throat but still, she swallows it down and climbs over Ava to give her the kiss which she’d missed for far too long. And even with the guilt and the heaviness she feels, kissing Ava still makes her feel like she’s truly come home. 

They start to fall into a rhythm after that. Ava continues to give her increasingly frequent concerned glances and she continues to ignore them and to ignore the heaviness which has rooted itself in her chest. She barely sleeps, the growing ache in her muscles and bones making it hard to relax and worse, the nightmares that haunt her the moment she closes her eyes. Visions of Oliver dying, of the moment she realised she’d lost Ava and the legends, of the indescribable pain she’d felt as the Anti-Monitor shot a blast of something into her and sent her flying. 

She barely eats too and soon opts to skip meals in her office instead of having to endure the awkwardness that’s settled over the legends since her abrupt change in behaviour and demeanor. (She worries that she might be losing her mind as well because she swears that her hand passed right through the handle to her coffee mug the other day but maybe that’s what happens when your diet consists of black coffee, alcohol and the occasional oatmeal.)

Days turn to weeks and she can tell it’s getting harder for Ava not to push her to talk. (Part of her knows that she needs to talk, needs to let it all out and for someone to absolve her of her guilt, but it’s easier said than done.) Plus, with Astra getting bolder, talking about the crisis has fallen even further down her list of priorities. And so she continues as she has been, barely existing outside of missions, until she can’t. 

The first thing she registers when she returns to consciousness is a firm pounding in her head and body. The next is a warm hand clutching hers and fine hair tickling her wrist and arm. She’s tempted to keep her eyes closed and go back to sleep but Gideon’s voice rings out, alerting whoever is resting against her to the fact that she’s awake and making her headache worse. 

“Sara! You’re awake! How’re you feeling?” It’s Ava, just as she’d expected, and she can’t help but smile despite feeling like death itself. 

“Never been better,” she says, voice rough. Ava lets out a tearful chuckle and leans down to give her a gentle peck on the lips. She’s about to deepen the kiss when Ava pulls away, causing her to pout slightly and Ava to smile softly despite the redness of her eyes. 

“Gideon, has Captain Lance been fully healed?”

“Yes, Miss Sharpe. All three stab wounds have been fully repaired.”

“Stab wounds? What happened Aves? I’m drawing a complete blank,” Sara questions as Ava helps her to her feet and opens a portal to her room on the Waverider. When she’s met with only silence, Sara glances at Ava again and her heart falls. Maybe something else had happened, maybe one of the other legends had gotten hurt or worse. 

“Aves? What’s wrong?” She asks as Ava settles her into her bed, fear creeping into her voice. When Ava just sits in front of her, head down and hands clasped in her lap, Sara’s heart starts to pound faster. 

“Ava? Is it one of the legends? What’s going-“

“What’s going on? What’s going on? You almost died Sara! Again! We had no idea what was happening and by the time we found you, you were bleeding out with three stab wounds in her chest. You could’ve died Sara. I could’ve lost you. You haven’t been sleeping and eating since the whole crisis thing. And maybe you got hurt because of that, because you were tired or couldn’t focus, because you’re still being haunted by things that happened and I didn’t push you to open up, I didn’t help you through them.” The words pour from Ava like river bursting through a dam. 

(A memory flashes in her mind of her fist passing straight through the man in front of her instead of knocking him firmly on the chin and then looking down to find a sword impaled in her chest but that’s something to mull on later.)

Reaching out to Ava, she gathers her in her arms as best as she can with the soreness in her limbs. Dampness begins to spread across her shirt and she rubs comforting circles across Ava’s back while whispering softly in her ear. Once again, the familiar feeling of guilt claws its way to the surface because while she’d been wallowing in her grief and guilt, she hadn’t realized how much she’d been hurting her girlfriend, the last person she ever wanted to hurt. Tears sting her eyes and she knows she has to talk for both their sakes. 

“I’m so so sorry Ava, I didn’t realize how much this was affecting you. Please believe me that that was the last thing I wanted, I just wasn’t strong enough to talk about it, to talk about how I’d lost everything again, everyone I loved, because I failed. I couldn’t save you guys. I couldn’t bring Oliver back, I couldn’t bring you guys back. I tried so hard to protect you and in the end, you still died while I lived. I should’ve been the one to die instead, not you, not the legends, not Oliver who just had a daughter. It should’ve been me. I’m so sorry Ava, I’m so sorry,” Sara continues to apologise as she finally allows herself to break down in the safety of Ava’s embrace. It was all a jumble in her mind, the grief of losing all those she loved, the guilt of not having been able to protect them and the guilt of being the one to survive yet again while her loved ones died. 

Finally, a warm hand presses firmly against her chest and Ava’s forehead rests against hers and for the first time in weeks, the swirling emotions and thoughts quieten ever so slightly. 

“Shh, it’s okay Sara, it’s okay. We’ll work through this together, alright? I’ll be here every step of the way and I know the other legends will be too. And don’t forget that we’re here now, you did get us back, you did protect us from whatever it was that happened. You didn’t fail Sara and you lived for a reason. Please don’t forget that.” While Ava’s words were hard to accept and Sara certainly didn’t know how much she did accept them, they still helped, slowly but surely mending the broken pieces of her heart. And Sara knew in that moment that even though the next few days and weeks, maybe even months, wouldn’t be any easier, with Ava and the legends, she would slowly be more okay. Perhaps not perfect or whole but better and that she could accept.


End file.
